How the GOP will deal with Sarah Palin

Plucked from obscurity in the middle of a presidential campaign, encased in new clothes, beloved by thousands, and given a ghost writer so a journalism major could bless America’s coffee tables with her wit and wisdumb.

Finding that the responsibility of holding office was too much for her, she decided to quit midterm, and promote what came naturally. Herself. She was packaged, sold and resold, measured by the armey of Koch, and honored with money and free access to the media, unlike anyone before her. Some of this was by accident, most of it was by design. In other words, the GOP has invested a lot in Sarah.

In some ways, the most unpleasant ones, to be sure, Sarah reminds us of a character in one of Sir Douglas Adams’ comical books, Zaphod Beeblebrox:

Only six people in the entire galaxy understood the principle on which the Galaxy was governed, and they knew that once Zaphod had announced his intention to run as president it was more or less a fait accompli:

* Only six people in the Galaxy knew that the job of Galactic President was not to wield power but to attract attention away from it.

The more outrageous Zaphod was, the more popular as president he became. One only has to look at the eight years of Bush to find something similar. Yet, one of her talents seems to be using her disadvantages to earn ever more profit and among the Tea Baggers, at least, popularity.

Let’s review what Sarah has done:

a) She aided and abetted the creation of Tea Baggers, since renamed the Tea Party because those hired by the Koch Brothers were too out of touch with certain parts of America’s culture.

d) She invited gun toters to her talks, and smiled when the fetid scent of future violence pervaded her dog and pony shows.

e) Using a gun metaphor, she concocted what she described as a “Hit List,” literally targeting liberals and moderate Democrats for attack.

f) She began using code words for guns, armed responses to liberals, and worse.

Here are just some of her words:

We’ll aim for these races and many others. This is just the first salvo in a fight to elect people across the nation who will bring common sense to Washington. Please go to sarahpac.com and join me in the fight.

She began talking about “not retreating, but reloading. Her audiences strongly supported gun ownership, and were being told that progressives, democrats, and most of all, Barack Obama, were planning to take them all away. Most of the time, democrats didn’t even bother responding to such charged, because they were totally baseless and ridiculous.

In hindsight, that was a mistake. The paranoia and fear caused by such deliberate rumors had several intended effects. The ranks of fearful Tea Baggers grew, fearful that the new black guy in office would be a socialist communist fascist anti-American foreigner taking away our rights. Silence from our side only reinforced such fears. Rumors about Obama’s health care bill became conventional wisdumb, displacing and replacing rational discussions on the whole bill.

The more Sarah used code words for guns, war, revolution, armed uprisings, the more popular she became with a significant (but still small) minority. As we laughed at their misspelled signs, and pointed to their messages, we missed just how demented and dangerous this could turn out to be. Sure, some of us warned, worried, and wrote about Sarah and the danger she represented. But even then, despite raising a warning, we could not help but look at her as a bit of a joke, a Zaphod Beeblebrox-type goof who would never . . . who could never be elected.

It worked. Too well. She remains popular with the Tea Bagger crowd, some of whom went out and bought their first book since high school. Several of her Tea Bagger candidates did incredibly well, and several even got elected to national office. The abject fear instilled on a daily basis since the 2008 election came home to roost, and the nation predictably reacted out of fear.

The House became Republican, even though we still have not repaired the incredible damage done by them earlier this century. Still, people did recall who ran things into the ground, and luckily the Senate remained in the hands of people who take the constitution and this country’s future seriously.

Several people here have long predicted that Sarah’s words and actions would eventually result in a crazy person going postal and probably taking a Democratic candidate or office holder out. Well, it happened.

Even though there is no sign that Jared was a Tea Bagger, a supporter of Sarah, or a fan of Sharron Angle’s 2nd Amendment solutions to America’s pesky socialist liberal problem, clearly the tone and content of Sarah’s words, and frankly, honestly, and seriously, most of the Tea Bagger leaders’ and candidates’ positions and speeches, laid the groundwork for future violence.

When you repeatedly hear that the Federal Government can do no right, (what was really a code word for that uppity muslim from Kenya) and that we have to take the solutions in our own hands, using the 2nd Amendment, it matters not whether those hearing these messages fully understand them or not. That’s the whole point with mentally sick and unbalanced people. They DON’T fully get it. But that does not mean that they missed all the messaging that Sarah and her crew were pushing.

What resulted was both predictable AND predicted. The horror of yesterday will stay with America for some time to come. But the response of the GOP, and more pointedly, of Sarah and her clan have already become clear.

Here’s Lamar Alexander (growing ever more conservative since the advent of Teabaggerism) attacking Candy Crowley for even raising Sarah Palin’s bullet (ahem) points in her question:

Well, Candy, I think you’re — I think you’re responsible, by bringing this up, of doing the very thing you’re trying to condemn. I mean, you’re making and implying a direct connection between Sarah Palin and what happened yesterday.

Sarah’s minions have been scrubbing every reference to Giffords from her Facebook page. She issued tweets and messages that seemed weak and pointless. Now, we learn that the SarahPac is testing a new meme, “They were not crosshairs, they were mapping aids!”

John Kyl takes any comparison with Sarah’s proposed shooting gallery personally and blames those who even dare raising the issue for any violence. Talk about a pot’s description of a kettle.

Right. Reload? Take Aim? Aim High? Join the battle? Come armed? Get ready for the first salvo? Be prepared to take no prisoners? It’s a battlefield? Hell, even Sarah crowed about how she took down 18 out of 20 she took aim at. Those were all her words of choice, intended to anger her troops.

Others, including reich winger Debra Saunders on CNN, and others did their best to insulate Sarah and other Tea Baggers from this event, in essence, insulating them from their own words of destruction.

I do believe this clearly shows the path of the GOP’s response, as well as showing how the MSM will deal with this in the future. I’ll give you a couple of hints:

When Senator Vitter was outed for his creative-diaper based hiring of prostitutes for sexual gratification, the family values GOP Senators gave him a standing ovation when he came back.

When Joe Wilson broke all protocols and shouted that President Obama was a liar, he was greeted with support, applause and additional financial backing.

When Judith Miller was caught acting like a mouthpiece for the warmongers of the Bush Administration, GOPers came out and supported her. Even now, she is a heroine, especially in her new position.

When Sarah Palin appears at the next big gathering of the GOP, she will be met by a standing ovation. You see, the logic is simple. Sarah did nothing wrong, and taking her words out of context, or worse, in context, is simply unfair. Also. And, because we are all raising up against her, she must be supported! Protected. Lauded. Applauded.

10 COMMENTS

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I didn’t assume partisanship until you brought it up. Where did bogofree say anything about either party?

I thought Sarah Palin was the object of discussion and her sudden “appearance” on the political scene after Bill Kritsol brought her name out of nowhere on Meet the Press one Sunday.
I saw the episode, and thought “Sarah Palin, how does she have any chance at being a VP contender?”

Bill Kritsol a neocon if there ever was one.
That was enough for me to know Sarah Palin was an empty suit designer for consumption by the US populace.

And Palin actually knew that she was essentially a marketing campaign. She said this at the National Governors Association meeting in D.C. back in February of ’08, before she knew she was a serious contender for the VP spot:

“I recognize that any of the buzz surrounds the fact that I happen to fit a demographic that is appealing to the ticket right now. That’s the reality. Again, I happen to fit a demographic at a time that the Republican Party needs to get with it and change and progress and allow others to be a part of public service. It’s gender, it’s age, it’s kind of the maverick being from the outside. It’s a combination of things.”

“She was packaged, sold and resold, measured by the armey of Koch, and honored with money and free access to the media, unlike anyone before her. Some of this was by accident, most of it was by design. In other words, the GOP has invested a lot in Sarah.”

Like no one else before her?

Let me do a little editing…

He was packaged, sold and resold, measured by the army of Soros, and honored with money and free access to the media, unlike anyone before her. Some of this was by accident, most of it was by design. In other words, the party of the jackass has invested a lot in Obama.

That’s all politics is these days…marketing campaigns. And no matter which side of the aisle you’re faithful to, most Americans are outright suckers for buying the New and Improved! packaging being applied to the same shitty product.

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